August 29, 2021August 29, 2021 Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: Summer Update – August 2021

As some of you know, on August 23, April once again walked the gauntlet of breast cancer tests, enduring multiple pokes, odd tasting contrast drinks, and the rumblings of CT and bone scan machines. Thankfully the scans returned favorable results. According to April’s oncologist, the breast cancer tumors scattered throughout her breast, liver, and bones are stable. They have neither significantly shrunk nor grown since April. The scans reaffirm our anecdotal conclusion, that April’s chemotherapy regime has prevented her HER2- ER+ PR+ cancer from advancing further into her life. Today by God’s grace, she finds herself in a state of good health. God is good!

Until her next scans in December 21, April and I will attempt to live out the well-used 1939, British slogan: “Keep calm and carry on.” At times, keeping calm is easier said than done. The experience of watching a 38-year-old woman struggle with periodic bouts of chemo fatigue that causes her to curl up into a ball in her favorite chair proves difficult for all of us. If we allow the bad days to define or set the trajectory for our thought life, the skies over our souls do darken and our heart rates begin to increase. Thankfully, Jesus still reigns on high. When the knowledge of his love infused promises shapes our thoughts, the clouds part and the calm returns to our souls. Indeed, addressing the troubles of today through prayer while trusting the unknowns of tomorrow to the Lord never gets old. Pray that we will continually prefer the promises of God to the fears of today.

To maintain this season of physical calm, April’s oncologists has increased her Abraxane dosage by 20%. Lord willing, this drug increase will further strengthen April’s defenses against her ever-invasive breast cancer, keeping her safe until her next scans. Until then, she will carry on through another three cycles of chemotherapy. Each cycle consists of three weeks of chemo infusions followed by one off week.

The administration of April’s treatment has not radically changed. She still rides the same elevator to the second story infusion center and sits in the same oversized orange chairs as the drug flows into her blood stream. But the increased Abraxane dosage has already exasperated April’s side effects, reintroducing her to the sensations of pain, nausea, and neuropathy. Please pray that these side effects will ease and that her chemotherapy will prove effective for the next three months.

With our hope in Christ, we plan carry on for now. Even when April can barely walk, she keeps the laundry going, organizes photoshoots, and facilitates our kiddos back-to-school preparations. When having her good days, April reads stories, cooks meals, and keeps us with a sense of normalcy. On both her good days and her, she provides the other four with the organization we possess. The three amigos are both eagerly and apprehensively looking towards the new school year which will commence with our oldest two children at Fresta Valley Christian School. We remain ever thankful for our Fresta family. Lastly, I too carry on in the pulpit of Amissville Baptist Church with the help, care, and understanding of my fellow elders, deacons, and ABC members. With fits and starts and a good deal of grace, we are slowly starting to craft a new normal around April’s bad days that makes the most of her good days! We will drop another update in December. Until then, we hope to keep calm and carry on.

Thank you for loving us well!

Contact Info

EMAIL US AT: BIBLEFIGHTER@GMAIL.COM

SNAIL-MAIL: P.O. BOX 637/ AMISSVILLE, VA 20106

CALL US AT: 540-937-6159.

SUPPORT US AT GOFUNDME.COM: APRIL WITKOWSKI MEDICAL FUND

SUPPORT US AT PAYPAL: ID: PAWitkowski

July 18, 2021July 17, 2021 Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: April’s Summer Update – July 2021

April has improved over the last few weeks! She no longer counts nausea and pain pills as her close friends. For the first time since late April, she has been able to care for our three kiddos on her own. She and I praise God for the latest round of victories over her stage four breast cancer and for our friends and family that have rallied around us during these dark days.

What’s Going On?

But her journey to this point has proved difficult. The climb is not yet done. Like the mountain paths hidden in the depths of the Blue Ridge Mountains that fill the horizon outside our home, April’s chemotherapy path has been steep, narrow, and full of rocks and roots. As some of you know, she stumbled off the chemo path just days after beginning her new phase of treatment. The chemotherapy drug ambraxane depleted her white blood cell count, dooming her to a six-day hospital stay. Once recovered from her infection and being neutropenic, she began to climb again. She still felt the daily pains of nausea and exhaustion. But with each passing week, the intensity of those pains has lessened. The liver pain went from being an ever-present companion to being an occasional twinge that came and went with each chemo dose. Over the last two weeks, she has been able to catch glimpses of health’s glorious vistas.

Notwithstanding the good results, the climb still contains dangerous three week stretches associated with chemotherapy. After each dose, April experiences noticeable fatigue, loss of appetite, and some nausea for at least two to three days. After three doses of chemo, she takes a week off from her treatment bringing her monthly cycle to an end.

But even during this break, she can encounter rough terrain. A few weeks back while at Lake Michigan, April’s legs blistered after minimal sun exposure, revealing that she has developed photosensitivity, a complication of her medications. Now, she must avoid direct sunlight as she walks towards health.

Despite these challenges, April’s Doctors believe her treatment plan has been successful. Her blood work has revealed that her liver and bones contain fewer and fewer cancer cells. She will undergo a new set of scans in mid-August. The climb continues.

The climb’s challenges go beyond nausea and fatigue. As she attains health, April has endured the thunderstorms of hair loss, canceled plans, and changing family dynamics. These summer winds have snuck up on her soul and flooded it with the heavy rains of sorrow on multiple occasions. But through it all she has remained resilient ever committed to caring for me, her kiddos, and her church family.

How are We Doing?

Her doctors think April will be walking on the chemotherapy trail throughout 2021. What comes next, no one exactly knows. She and I will cross that bridge and decided upon the next treatment plan when we come to it.

After wrestling with Jesus’s words in his famed Sermon on the Mount, April and I have sought to focus t our gaze mostly upon the present. Matthew 6:34 states, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Though we like to think our plans and emotions can determine the future, we have come to the simple and yet profound realization that they do not. Our fears about death do not keep us alive. Our worries about trials do not make us more beautiful. And our what if scenarios with all their hypothetical contingencies don’t shape God’s plans for us. As Jesus notes, “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” When we live in the world of imaginary futures, we do harm to our souls.

When we live in the world of imaginary futures, we do harm to our souls.
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This is not to say that we should not plan. April and I have delayed this blog in part for planning purposes. We wanted to determine our children’s destination for the 2021-2022 schoolyear (we decided to enroll them in Fresta Valley Christian School) before sitting down to the keyboard. Moreover, I think having health insurance is a good thing. But worrying about what happens if this treatment fails in five months is completely unprofitable. We could be hit by an asteroid tomorrow and never see five months from now. Though we tend to assume that the future is more tangible than the present, Jesus asserts the opposite. Today is our greatest reality. We will deal with tomorrow….well, tomorrow.

But we are not putting our heads in the sand. Rather by faith we trust in the goodness of God. He is the same today as he was yesterday and will be tomorrow exactly who he is today. In other words, the God that has seen April through her terrible, horrible, no good, very bad days will see her through tomorrow. He will be ever present with her and us regardless of whether she reaches new pinnacles of health or stumbles into another steep decline. He will see us through all our tomorrows and will be a present help even if tears rain down our faces. Since God will be there tomorrow, we allow him to deal with all those future worries. We cast our cares upon him for he cares for us!

Admittedly, we are not great at holding our thoughts captive. Sometimes when life heats up, the thought vault in our heart cracks allowing thoughts to ooze past the door of wisdom and pool up in the valleys of despair, casting unnecessary shadows over otherwise good days. To be like Jesus, we must daily crucify our instinctive impulse to speculate about tomorrow, remembering that the God who clothes grass in glory also cares deeply about April and our family. We don’t always live in today; but when we do, joy and comfort abound. To be more like Jesus.

How to Pray

We ask you to pray for our hearts. Pray that we will focus upon today, keeping our thoughts away from unprofitable thoughts about tomorrow. Pray that God will give April the strength she needs to love others well when she has good days full of strength and bad days full of fatigue. Pray that God will extend April’s life. Lastly, please pray that God will save our three children.

Contact Info:

EMAIL US AT: BIBLEFIGHTER@GMAIL.COM

SNAIL-MAIL: P.O. BOX 637/ AMISSVILLE, VA 20106

CALL US AT: 540-937-6159.

SUPPORT US AT GOFUNDME.COM: APRIL WITKOWSKI MEDICAL FUND

SUPPORT US AT PAYPAL: ID: PAWitkowski

SCHEDULE A TIME TO HELP: BIBLEFIGHTER@GMAIL.COM

May 8, 2021May 11, 2021 Peter Witkowski Memos

Memo: Quick Breast Cancer Update – May 2021

(As of 5/11/21, this post no longer accurately reflects April’s health. We will post another update by this weekend.)

Dear friends, thank you for faithfully praying for April this past week! God has been gracious to our family! April no longer is suffering the debilitating pain and nausea that made bed rest a necessity for several days. Her new treatment plan has also stabilized her liver enzymes. God has heard our prayers and has guided April away from the edge of disaster back towards the pastures health as this week progressed. Though she is moving in a far more promising direction, April has yet to arrive at the stable ground which is decorated with the flowers of normalcy. Today’s path still consists of many malformed bumps and rocks that take the form of mild liver pain, frequent nausea, and noticeable fatigue. She also stumbled into a rut with her new treatment plan that has resulted in a rash. Her medical team will be tweaking her treatments over the next few weeks to reduce the negative side effects associated with one of April’s pills in hopes of creating a treatment regime that will still effectively whack her cancer without wrecking the rest of her body. Though April is not well, she is much better today than she was last week. We hope this good turn of events points to a future filled with many even brighter and more peaceful days. In short, we (with you) called out to God in our distress and can confidently say that our God has heard our cries for help (Psalm 18:1-6)!

Thank you for partnering with us through prayer! We also want to thank our medical teams and the many, many family members, ABC church members, and friends who have helped us manage last several weeks meeting needs we could have never anticipated. God has been good to us and has shown us his love through you! Thank you!

Please continue to pray for April. Pray that the nausea, pain, and fatigue will retreat to the point that she can once again home school our kids and manage the home. Pray for God to sustain over the next several weeks as the days have been long and filled with never ending general sense of unwellness. ~~Pray that God will bless us with a great relationship with our new medical team at INOVA~~. And pray that God will give us wisdom as we seek to parent our children through this season.